Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to license management systems and related methods, and more particularly, to license management systems and related license management methods thereof capable of managing the obtaining and releasing of a given number of licenses.
Description of the Related Art
License distribution is used to manage a variety of licenses, such as the obtaining and releasing of a software license, to distribute limited number of licenses to be used by multiple users or devices. Traditionally, there are two kinds of the license distribution mechanisms. The first mechanism does not limit the number of licenses that each group can use, so those who require licenses from the server first will obtain the licenses first. However, such mechanism may make the licenses cannot be evenly distributed and used. The second mechanism limits the number of licenses that each group can use, so the licenses can be evenly distributed and used by pre-setting the maximum number of licenses that each group can use. However, the remaining licenses of each group cannot be effectively utilized.
In addition, when the license server is fully loaded, there is no license that can be used. As users request licenses, they will only get a wrong message indicating that the number of licenses is insufficient and cannot know when they can obtain licenses. They may need to always try to manually request licenses, thus wasting of time and manpower.